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Background My father held a First-Class Certificate of Competency 1– the Colliery Manager’s Certificate. He may also have held a Second-Class Certificate of Competency 2 – the Under Manager’s Certificate. I was born in 1940 when my father was an under manager at Dorman and Long’s Leasingthorne Colliery a in South West Durham. He was subsequently under manager of two other Dorman and Long pits i.e Bowburn and the Mainsforth Collieries (around 1943). He took up his first managership when he became the manager of Leasingthorne Continue reading →

Stephen worked 22 years underground in the Durham Coalfields. Stephen started work aged 16 as an Apprentice Miner at Dawdon Colliery in 1971. After only 7 years Stephen received his deputy tokens and continued to work at the Colliery, 7 days a week, until 1991. His work in the pits seen him cover longwall faces, measure drifts, headings and salvage work. When leaving Dawdon Colliery in 1991 he worked for one year at Vane Tempest Colliery then the next year at Westoe Colliery before finishing Continue reading →

  I’m originally from Deafhill. I lived there until I moved to Peterlee with my wife. Anyway, living in Deafhill, my dad and a few of his friends started a small community centre with a dartboard, a pool table and dominoes; that kind of thing. In the summertime, they decided to play a game of quoits. They dug a hole in the grounds of the building where the centre was and they dug up a Deafhill Miners pit token. They couldn’t decide who would keep it Continue reading →